


The Traveler Is My Co-Parent

by sabinelagrande



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Aasimar, Anti-Tiefling Prejudice, F/M, Humor, Not-So-Virgin Births, Pregnancy, Tieflings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-26
Updated: 2018-08-26
Packaged: 2019-07-02 15:06:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15799023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sabinelagrande/pseuds/sabinelagrande
Summary: A family can be a tiefling, an aasimar, a firbolg, two humans, a goblin, a half-orc, an upstart deity, and, um…





	The Traveler Is My Co-Parent

In Nicodranas, it's the breakfast hour, and most of the Mighty Nein are enjoying it, talking idly over the salted fish and strong coffee that characterize the morning meal here. Only Jester is missing, but before long she comes down the stairs from the inn above, looking cheerful even by her normal standards.

"Guess what?" she says, to the table in general.

"You have started a new sketchbook," Caleb says.

"Nope," Jester says.

"You bought donuts for everyone," Clay says hopefully.

Jester shakes her head. "Uh-uh."

"You desecrated another temple," Beau tries.

"Technically, vandalism is not the same thing as desecration, technically," Jester says. "But no."

"Well, I'm stumped," Fjord says, taking a swig from his mug.

"I'm pregnant!" Jester says excitedly. 

Fjord spews coffee across the table.

"I do not think I heard you right," Caleb says.

"She said she's knocked up," Beau marvels.

"Ah," Caleb says. "Then I did hear, but I didn't understand." He hesitates. "Perhaps this is an indelicate question, but the father is-" He lets the sentence hang suggestively. 

"The Traveler, of course," Jester says proudly, and there is a collective look of puzzlement. 

"How do-" Beau says, making motions with her hands. "What does- if you- with a god- does he even-"

"How in the nine hells did this happen?" Fjord asks, still wiping coffee off the table.

"Yeah, that," Beau says.

"Oh, you know," Jester says. "First I got a room at the Pillowtrove, then I lit some candles-"

"So it was some sort of secret ritual with fire?" Nott asks.

"No, that was just mood lighting," Jester says. "Candlelight is very flattering."

"Then how did it happen?" Nott says.

Jester leans over to Nott, cupping a hand around Nott's ear and whispering to her.

"Ohh," Nott says. "That's nice, I guess."

"It was _very_ nice," Jester says dreamily. "And now I am going to have his baby."

"Wait, the Pillowtrove?" Fjord says. "It's been a long while since we were in Zadash."

"I didn't know right away," Jester says. "I mean, you know, I _knew_ , because the Traveler said it, but I didn't _know_."

"So you're, um," Fjord says, making a motion with his fist that fails to convey anything. "You're good and pregnant, then."

"I waited until I was really sure until I told you guys," Jester says. She takes her dress in both hands and stretches it over her stomach, looking down. "I think I might even be showing a little bit."

Beau leans forward, peering at her stomach, tilting her head to one side. "If you kinda look this way, you can see a shadow maybe."

"This is a crazy story," Clay says, a delighted look on his face. 

"You don't believe me?" Jester says, letting her dress fall, deflated.

"I don't think you're lying," Clay says. "I just think it's crazy. I've been worshipping the Wildmother for dozens of seasons and I've never gotten pregnant from it."

There is a pause.

"She's a Prime Deity," Clay says, sounding defensive, which is rare for him. "She could get all of you pregnant if she wanted."

"I trust you and your weird story," Nott says, patting Jester's hand.

"Hey, Team Almost Normal, huddle up for a second," Fjord says quietly, and Beau and Caleb lean in towards him. "Do we really believe Jester got in the family way from a god?"

"Ah, I am not ruling out a hysterical pregnancy having to do with religious ecstasy," Caleb says. "But if she really is pregnant, I don't know who else it could be."

"If she got pregnant, she got pregnant on purpose," Beau says. "Trust me on that one. She didn't just slip up one night and think of a story after the fact."

"So we agree that if Jester is pregnant, it's the Traveler's," Fjord says.

"That seems reasonable, yes," Caleb says.

"And we agree that that's a fuckin' weird thing to even have to say," Fjord says.

"Oh yeah," Beau says.

"But we also agree that we're just gonna go with it," Fjord says.

"In the worst case, we either to go with it and look foolish later, or dismiss it and be spectacularly shitty friends," Caleb says. "So I say we go with it."

"Same," Beau says.

"Good talk," Fjord says.

Caleb leans back, addressing the rest of the group. "Perhaps I am stating the obvious, but we travel a lot, and I doubt any of us could deliver a child."

"I can," Clay says.

"You can?" Fjord says.

"I am a cleric," Clay says. "I mean, I probably know how to do it. Can't be that hard."

"Okay, so he has no idea," Beau says.

"Don't worry," Jester says dismissively. "We can find somebody when the time comes. We don't even know where we'll be."

"That's a fair point," Fjord says. 

"Everything will be just fine," Jester says. She turns away, walking towards the bar. "I'm going to drink so much milk!"

Everyone left at the table looks at each other.

"Breakfast beer it is," Beau says, and no one contradicts her.

\--

But Jester's stomach is soon growing, and it becomes obvious that she's telling at least parts of the truth. For her part, Jester seems thrilled with the progression, and it's becoming more and more normal to the rest of them. After a few weeks, it seems obvious, just a fact about a thing that's happening.

"What is the baby going to be?" Nott asks gingerly, one night when they're camping out.

"What do you mean?" Jester says curiously.

"Tieflings have infernal blood, right?" Nott says. "And you're a tiefling. But people who have divine blood are aasimars, and the Traveler is a god."

"Aasimars have the blood of the angels, though, generally speaking," Caleb puts in.

"Then what are the children of gods?" Nott asks.

Jester wiggles her fingers. "Nobody knows," she says in her spookiest voice.

"It all gets a bit strange with celestial and infernal heritage," Caleb says.

"You can have half-tieflings," Jester says. "The other half is usually human."

"Isn't it always?" Nott says, and they share a laugh that makes Caleb give them an unamused look.

"Perhaps they will cancel each other out and you'll get a totally boring person," Caleb says.

"Or maybe they'll be swirled together like a marble cake," Jester says brightly.

Nott frowns, looking contemplative. "Would it be blotches or spirals?"

"Oooh," Jester says. "Spirals would be really cool."

"I think you'd better not hope for-" Caleb starts. "What am I saying? One is just as likely and unlikely as the other."

"That's the spirit," Jester says, and Caleb leans into the bizarreness of it just a little bit more.

\--

Yasha returns when Jester is not too far along and stays for a long while. One night, she knocks on Jester's door; Jester is alone, sketching a picture of a gnoll with bulging eyes and its tongue hanging out.

"I can help," Yasha says, when Jester lets her in.

"You are very helpful," Jester assures her.

"With the baby, I mean," Yasha says. "It's- it's going to be like me."

"How do you know that?" Jester asks.

"It's the only thing that makes sense," Yasha says. "I don't know much about your god, but divinity is divinity. If he gave you this, it will be obvious when the baby is born."

Jester sits down on the bedspread, patting it next to her, and Yasha sits. "What is it like, being like you?" she asks.

"It's not like being like you," Yasha says. "Most people don't know what I am. They think I'm scary because I'm big, but mostly they just think I'm a pale human."

"But you aren't any more human than I am," Jester says.

"Yeah," Yasha says. She looks pensive for a moment. "It's good to be like me. I can't know for sure, but I think it's better than being human."

"Being human is for boring people," Jester says. "I would take tiefling any day of the week."

"So when the child wants to know about being like me, I'm going to be there for it," Yasha says. "I wish somebody had been willing to do that for me."

Jester throws her arms around Yasha. "You will be the best scary aunt," she says. "The baby will love you."

Yasha remains stiff for a moment, but she eventually hugs Jester back. "I have to go soon," she says. "I don't think I'll be gone long this time."

"I wish you wouldn't go," Jester says. "That doesn't mean I don't understand why you do."

"If anyone would get it, it would be you," Yasha says.

Jester puts a hand on her belly. "I did get it," she says.

Yasha snorts in amusement. "I'd do anything for the Stormlord, but I'd be okay with it if he never asked me to do that."

"It's not so bad," Jester says. "And it's even better with people to help."

"I'll try," Yasha says. Thunder rolls outside the window, and both of them look up at the noise.

"Your ride's here," Jester says.

Yasha stands; she bends down quickly, like she's doing it on impulse, and kisses Jester on the top of the head. "I'll see you soon," she promises.

"I know I will," Jester says. Yasha leaves, and Jester picks up her sketchbook again. She flips to a clean page and begins drawing a new picture: Yasha with her wings, a little bundle in her arms.

She's also kicking a human in the face, but it's really just in the corner.

\--

The Traveler is not gone for the whole of Jester's pregnancy. This is what is generally assumed anyway; no one ever seems to see or hear him but Jester, and it's not clear whether this is timing, magic, or just Jester making up his presence entirely. All anyone ever hears is Jester's side of the conversation, and on this particular night, as Caleb and Fjord sit talking before bed, this is mostly comprised of giggling and the odd moan.

Caleb and Fjord spend the better part of thirty minutes resolutely ignoring that anything is happening at all, as they talk amongst themselves and don't remark on any noise that may or may not be happening. But there's a yelp and a laugh during a lull in conversation, and the two of them look at each other.

"There's no law against it, I suppose," Caleb says.

"Oh, there's definitely a law against it," Fjord says. "It's not even legal to worship the Traveler. It's decidedly illegal to-" He looks for a word. "To 'worship' him, if you follow me," he says, with finger quotes.

The corner of Caleb's mouth twitches once, twice. He starts laughing with his mouth shut, the way he's breathing out the only indication, but it progresses quickly. First he's snickering, then he's chuckling, then he tips his head back and howls with laughter, pounding on his knee.

"Keep it down," Jester calls.

"My apologies," Caleb says, getting himself back under control, wiping tears of mirth from the corners of his eyes.

"You get tickled, there?" Fjord asks.

"I just started thinking about it and suddenly remembered how absurd it was," Caleb says.

"It is pretty funny," Fjord says after a moment. "I keep forgetting how weird it is and then catching myself."

"We are all hopeless at this point," Caleb says.

"I don't think you're wrong," Fjord says.

"Some of us are trying to bone," Jester says loudly.

"We know," Beau calls from elsewhere.

"I'm making my hut," Caleb says, pulling a glass bead from his component pouch. "Things are simpler in my hut."

"I'll join you," Fjord says. "I like the hut."

"I just learned I can make it change colors," Caleb says, preparing to cast the spell. "I am thinking perhaps green this time."

"Green's a great color," Fjord says.

"Watch your head," Caleb says, and soon after, the two of them disappear from view.

\--

It's really remarkable that no one starts shit about the obvious half of Jester's child's parentage until she's very heavily pregnant. They're walking through a town just big enough to have a street preacher, who is currently railing about how everyone is doomed for not worshipping correctly. The rant is stereotypically disjointed, and it's hard to pinpoint which god he thinks will save them from perdition. There are a few people around him, but they're mostly looking at him with quiet bemusement- or in some cases, amusement.

It's not exactly surprising, then, that he zeroes in on Jester, who's eating a pastry and talking to Clay. They've seen precious few tieflings since they came into town, and Jester is, at the moment, a big target.

"See this creature of ill will, bringing suffering everywhere," he shouts, pointing at Jester, and the assembled turn to look at her, paused with her pastry halfway to her mouth. "See how they spawn, creating more of their foul lineage."

"Just like your mama!" Nott shouts back, promptly ducking behind Yasha, and there is a laugh from the crowd.

"It's the work of the hells themselves!" he continues, undeterred. "The child will be born with curling black horns-"

"They grow in later," Yasha says.

"And terrible cloven feet-" the man continues, nonplussed by Yasha's lack of surprise. 

"Could you wear boots with cloven feet?" Beau says to the woman beside her, getting a shrug in response.

"Hold this for me, Caddy," Jester tells Clay, handing him her half-eaten pastry.

The zealot seems to realize he's losing the crowd. "And- and it'll have-"

"Big scary claws!" Jester says, her voice magically amplified, holding out her hands in a menacing claw shape. The people around her flinch back, though the way she waves her hands around makes it a bit more comical than threatening. Her harasser, however, screeches and flees, terrified of the monster attacking him.

Jester takes her pastry back from Clay, who only ate a little of it, and puts a hand on Nott's shoulder. "I'm too pregnant to skip away, so you have to do it for me."

"Alright," Nott says, and she dutifully does, Jester trailing in her wake.

A woman is staring after them suspiciously, and Clay and Yasha both notice. "Nothing to see here," Yasha says flatly, walking away, and the woman recoils.

Clay reaches into his bag, gently takes the woman's hand, and puts a piece of fruit in it. "Have an apple."

"Uh," the woman says, but Clay is already loping off behind them.

\--

In the end, finding a midwife is maybe the easiest and most straightforward part of the whole affair; they knock on a certain door with a heaving Jester, and an elderly tiefling draws her in quickly. To those waiting, the labor seems to stretch on and on, but that's probably nothing compared to how it feels to the one actually going through it.

But some time after the birth, the rest of them are ushered in to see what has transpired. Jester looks like she might fall asleep, but there is a baby resting on her chest. The baby has pearly-white skin and a dusting of sky-blue hair, with a set of small bumps where horns will grow in. Its eyes are a pupiless blue, and its back is smooth where a tail would sprout.

"So I guess you split the difference," Fjord says.

"Her name is Mollymauk," Jester says, because there was never another choice.

Beau nods. "Good for every gender."

"Mollymauk La-" Jester stops. She leans over to Yasha. "What's the word for travel in Celestial?"

"Niath," Yasha says, the word sounding musical, like Celestial does.

"Mollymauk Niath Lavorre," Jester says.

There is a laugh from the other side of the room, and all of them turn to look.

"You came!" Jester says excitedly, and a figure in a green cloak steps away from the wall.

"How could I possibly miss this?" he says, striding over and bending down to kiss the baby's forehead.

"Oh shit," Fjord says.

"You do exist," Beau says in awe. "I mean, I knew you must exist? But you really exist."

"Tell all your friends," the Traveler says.

Clay walks over and slowly moves his hand towards the Traveler. The Traveler looks at him with amusement, not moving out of the way as Clay's hand bumps into his arm.

"I have no idea what this tells me," Clay says.

"So you, ah," Caleb says. "You are keeping your hand in when it comes to the mortal world, as it were."

"It wasn't his hand," Jester says.

"Hedging my bets, shall we say," the Traveler says. "If you prefer, think of it as a blessing to my beloved favorite." He bops Jester gently on the nose with one finger, and Jester giggles. "I have plans for you," he tells her.

"The kind of plans where I have to figure out whether I can kick a god's ass, or the good kind of plans?" Beau asks.

"They're along the theme of growing my worship and spreading joyful chaos to every corner of Exandria," the Traveler says. "Roving high priestess and her miracle child is what I'm thinking, rather than anything particularly sinister."

"I can live with that," Beau says.

"My god, I just realized what a hellion this child is going to be," Fjord says, pinching the bridge of his nose.

The Traveler laughs. "She is going to be insufferable. You'll be springing her from every jail in Wildemount."

"Every week we don't have to spring her mom is another little miracle," Beau says.

"Will I see you again soon?" Jester asks the Traveler.

"Perhaps I'll stick around for a little while," the Traveler says. "We have an event coming up, do we not?"

"That's right!" Jester says. "Everyone will be so excited to meet the baby."

"I'm counting on it," the Traveler says.

"Do you find the Traveler very subtly unsettling?" Caleb says to Fjord, sotto voce.

"I was hoping it wasn't just me," Fjord says.

"We're going to let you sleep," Yasha says to Jester. She eyes the Traveler. "Or whatever it is you want to do."

"I definitely want to sleep," Jester says with a sigh. "The midwife says I can stay if I need to, so just find an inn and send me a message."

"I'm on it," Nott says, and she's out the door, followed closely by Clay, and then the rest of them. There's noise as they speak with the midwife and then spill out into the street, and then quiet. 

"I thought she might have blue and white spots," the Traveler says.

"I wanted spirals," Jester says. "This is nice, though."

"Blends in a bit easier," he says. "For when you want to make an escape."

"That's so important," she says, yawning. "At least until she learns how to disguise herself."

"I suspect she'll have no trouble on that score," he says. He runs a hand over her hair. "Get some rest. I'll be here."

"You're always here for me," she says, and she lets him take the baby. She almost immediately drops off, still exhausted.

"You have no idea how much trouble we're going to get into," he says to young Molly, grinning. "You and I are going to do terrible things." 

He pauses, glancing around. "With these itty bitty toeses," he says, tickling her foot, in a way that is entirely unbecoming a god. "And these tiny little fingers, and this cute little nose." Jester stirs, and he clears his throat, getting it back together. "Yes. Anyway, we're going to be very powerful, is the point."

The baby makes a baby sound, shifting in the Traveler's arms before settling again. For now, it looks nothing like the thing it will become one day, a mythical figure whose name will be spoken throughout Exandria, along with the names of its parents. For now, it merely rests in its father's arms, like any child would.

Those arms will make all the difference.


End file.
